Sunday, December 23, 2012

It's the busiest time of year for me at work so I didn't have a lot of time or energy to sit and do some holiday nail art. I'm seen so many beautiful festive manicures throughout the blogosphere! I'm jealous!

Every year I can't decide whether or not I want to buy some Christmas glitter nail polishes. They all look so pretty but there's only one time of year you can wear them. So I decided to mix my own this year and this was the final result:

Saturday, December 22, 2012

I've teamed up with several other lovely blogger for a Happy Holidays giveaway.

This giveaway is open internationally as a huge thank you for all fans throughout the world!

There is a gift basket full of goodies and also a $110 gift card!!!!! Here is a list of some (not all) of the items in the basket:

4 Polishes from the China Glaze Holiday Collection

E.L.F Beauty on the go

PalletMary Kay Cream

BlushKiss Lashes

Sephora Lip Gloss

Mary Kay Eye Makeup Remover

Philosphy Amazing Grace Powder Compact

Barielle Ultra Speed Dry Top Coat

Revlon Lip GlossesEos Lip Balm

Stila Lip Glaze

Loreal Hip Pigments

Jelup Daylight Defense

NYC eyeliners,

NYC lip glosses

Rimmel Mascaras

Here's how it works: If an international reader is drawn first, they will get the gift card and there will be another drawing for a US winner for the basket. If a US reader is drawn first they will win the whole thing!

Also a HUGE thank you and shout out to Mercedes at Beyond Beauty Lounge for putting this whole thing together! The giveaway ends on New Year's

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

As a thank you to my fans, I put together some prizes for my 1-yr blogiversary. There will be three winners.

First prize

$100 (USD) Sephora gift card! This can be redeemed in Sephora stores or Sephora.com. Gift card will be mailed.

Second Prize

Indie minis from L to R: Pretty & Polished Party on my Yacht and Jawbreaker. 365 Days of Color My Little Cuppycake and Glittercide. We all know how much of a pain glitter removal can be so I'm including one full size of Essence Ready for Boarding Peel off Base Coat. If you are unfamiliar with peel off base coats, please see this post.

Third Prize

One full sized bottle of Deborah Lippman's Mermaid Dream.

TERMS & CONDITIONS:

Must be 18-yrs or older to enter.

This giveaway is no way affiliated with Facebook or Blogger. All product(s) were purchased by me with my own money. I am no way affiliated with the brand(s) or companies mentioned. All product(s) are new, unused and unopened.

Open to US and Canada residents.

Winners will be contacted via email and will have 72-hours to respond or prizes will be forfeited and a new winner will be drawn.

First winner contacted will be given first choice of prizes and so on.

I am not responsible for lost, stolen or damaged prizes. I will do my best to ensure prizes arrive safely. Please allow 1-week for me to ship prizes.

This giveaway will run for approximately two weeks, ending 12/27/2012 at 12:00 AM PST.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

I received some striping tape for review from Born Pretty Store. They are a nail supplier site with a good variety of nail art items that include polishes, stamping plates, nail gems, nail art tools and brushes as well as many other beauty supplies.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Christmas season is upon us now that Thanksgiving is over. (Christmas officially starts sometime is October, anyway...) So, we're seeing lots of reds and greens and shiney things.

Here's an untried green from my collection:

Australis Here Today Gone Tomorrow is a dark hunter green jelly. It was opaque in two coats but seen here with three and top coat. I was afraid that the green would stain through so I did two layers of base coat. Surprisingly, it did not. On a funny note, I wore this for a day so it was indeed here today, gone tomorrow.

I received this in swap from Australia earlier this year and I do not know much else about this brand. Searching their site, they are a cruelty free brand which is great! Unfortunately, if you live outside of Australia, they do not ship internationally.

Friday, November 9, 2012

I picked up Sally Hansen's Lava from their Lustre Shine collection at Walgreens. This was the most unique out of the colors because they looked like dupes from the China Glaze duochrome release.

You can see the color shift here.

It looks gold at this angle here.

Sally Hansen's Lava. This is a pink to orange to gold glass fleck duochrome. Since it is a glass fleck, the formula was a little thin. I should have had more patience with this and kept dinging or smudging my nail. This was 3-coats total. I will say that at this many coats it looks a little too dense and the glass fleck aspect is lost. So try for 2-coats and it has more shine and sparkle

Blurry low light shot.

I thought Lava and Color Club's Wild and Willing were dupes. They're not.

Color Club's Wild and Willing. This duochrome goes from gold to orange to slightly pink. I had the same issue with this one. I added too many coats and the color was too dense.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Bullying is not funny. It is not cool. It is not right. And more importantly, it is not okay.
Most of us are, thankfully, residents of countries that support tolerance and many of our families have settled in these places simply for that reason. Generations later, it is our responsibility to perpetuate that message of tolerance across our new social platforms, including the internet.

As members of the nail polish blogging community, we all share a love of beauty, color, and lacquer. Other than that, we are remarkably different: from our race to our religion to our hair color...even to our polish application techniques. To marginalize anyone because of those differences is completely unacceptable and today I take a stand against that. I refuse to allow other people's view of "normal" dictate how I behave, believe, and blog.

In solidarity with a multitude of bloggers linked below, my purple manicure represents my proud commitment to the No H8 movement. Today, November 8, I dedicate my post to ending bullying of any kind and to encouraging diversity and imperfection among our colorful community.

Ozotic Pro 513.

Let me just say that with the advancement of technology, bullying has morphed and become more cruel than it was ever before. Now called cyberbullying, it's easy for some to sit back with their keyboards and spew whatever hatred or malice without any thought or reason. I really can't fathom why would anyone sit and spread so much negativity over a manicure, nail art or even if they had a clean cuticle line.

As always, my policy will forever be....don't like? Click "X" and that should resolve your problem.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

The OPI Skyfall 2012 holiday release celebrates 50 years of Bond films and is aptly named after the upcoming Bond release, Skyfall. The full set consists of 12 polishes plus a 18 carat gold flake top coat (The Man with the Golden Gun). I picked up the mini set a couple of weeks ago and was really pleased with this set.

Friday, November 2, 2012

I've already posted these to Facebook but I thought I would expand further just in case anyone was interested in how I completed these manicures. As always, I wanted to do more Halloween nail art and feel like I didn't do enough. There's always next year right?

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Sadly, there's only one more Go Pink Wednesday after today! I've teamed up with numerous other bloggers across the blogsphere to Go Pink and to help spread awareness for Breast Cancer. If you would like to join, please see Finger Painting Fingers.

Here is my Go Pink manicure for this week:

The base is OPI I Vant to be a Lone Star which was a runny mess! I did not do the best paint job due to the poor formula. That's why I stamped over it with this geometric pattern from Cheeky XL Plate A with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Presto Pink The stamp did not cover my nails that is why I painted a glitter half moon and a pink french tip to cover where it did not reach. I've only used the Cheeky XL plates twice because the images aren't very large. I supposed I could cut my nails down but that's not happening.

Friday, October 19, 2012

I know I'm a little late in posting about the China Glaze duochromes that were released a few months back. I finally got around to buying these when I stumbled across a Sally's Beauty Supply at random. These two were the remaining ones on the display.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

I was lucky enough to receive a couple of Emily de Molly polishes in some recent nail mail from Australia. Thank you, Hooked!

Emily de Molly is an indie polish brand based out of Australia and unfortunately for those of us stateside she no longer ships internationally. However, the good news is that Emily de Molly polishes will soon be sold on Llarowe. I'm not sure when they'll be available, I'm guessing here soon.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

October is Breast Cancer awareness month and many bloggers have joined in to help spread awareness with many variations of pink manicures throughout the month.

Here's an untried pink from my collection:

Wet n Wild's Precious Petals from their chrome collection that was released in the spring. This is an intense foil polish that's incredibly metallic and shiny. I'd say it's as close to wearing a Minx manicure with using polish. Also, this is a one-coater but I did two coats. Judging by the density, this might be good for stamping but I haven't tried it yet. These are still in stores but tucked under shelves or behind other displays.

I wanted to try to paint a ribbon but felt this foil base would not work. A creme base would be better for a ribbon.

Please feel free to check out the amazing other breast cancer awareness manicures around the blogosphere. I'm going to try to paint a better Breast Cancer Awareness manicure before month-end.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

This week's theme is our favorite brand. Now, I have a lot of favorite brands like Zoya, Wet n Wild, OPI but out of all the brands I have I'd have to say China Glaze is my all time favorite. The formula is always good, great color variety and availability. China Glaze never seems to disappoint me.

China Glaze Pelican Grey is a light grey. It's a true grey with no blue or purple undertones. It has a slight silver shimmer to it. I topped it with White Cap which is a shimmery gold for added shimmer. White Cap is a good layering polish when you want to revamp an old mani without completely changing it or when you want to add shimmer. I wore this because I wanted something neutral to wear to work this week.

Here's some bottle spam of rare and hard to find China Glaze colors I proudly own:

China Glaze OMG, GR8T, FYI, TTYL & TMI

China Glaze LOL, IDK,DV8 & 2NITE.

I own most of the China Glaze OMG collection. I'm missing the remaining three that I don't think I will be able to get them. I got these off eBay over the course of 2010 and 2011. Don't despair if you missed out on these, China Glaze will release another set of linear holos for Spring 2013.

China Glaze Virtual Violet, 3D Fantasy & Techno Teal.

These were from last year's Tronica collection that were supposed to be holographic but had a very slight holo shimmer to them. Many people were disappointed looking for dupes to the OMG collection. These are very pretty just not what I was looking for. These were limited edition exclusive in store at Sally's Beauty Supply and sold out very quickly.

China Glaze Millennium, Sci-Fi, Robotika & 2030.

These were from the Khrome collection. I don't think you can find Millennium anymore for a reasonable price but it's the best silver chrome ever! These are also great for stamping, that's why I bought them.

I really would like to get the remaining colors in this collection to complete it. I never got around to doing it. This set of cremes released in spring 2010. I think it's the most versatile of all the China Glaze collections. Great for every day wear, great for nail art and just great all around!

The bestest China Glaze of all, Fairy Dust!

Fairy Dust is a holographic micro glitter in a clear base. Like the Polished Genius said, "Fairy Dust is like the bacon of the nail world, you can put it on anything!" If you don't have Fairy Dust, you need it! It's another great layering polish for when you want to add some rainbow sparkle to your manicure!

Overall, I think I have a color from every collection that China Glaze has released in the past few years. Unfortunately, I do not have the whole set from one collection. I like to pick which ones I like and are the most unique versus having a whole collection for the sake of having it. The last time I counted, I had 50 bottles total. I know there's more than that.

*On a sad note, this will be my last Artsy Wednesday post. Life has caught up to me and I'm no longer to post/blog at the rate I would like to. Unfortunately, I have to retire. I will continue to check out everyone's Artsy Wednesday post. I look forward to what everyone comes up with.

Please be sure to check out other amazing Arsty Wednesday participants:

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

This week's theme is lace nails. I have a simple yet elegant manicure for this week's theme.

The base is Zoya's Ginessa which is a shimmery sheer white polish. I bought it because a wanted a dupe for China Glaze's Frosty. I then stamped a half of the fishnet stamp and then the smaller lace stamp at the border from Konad plate M57. It was hard to get the diagonal just right. The rose is from BM14 and I added a silver rhinestone in the center.

Please be sure to check out other amazing Arsty Wednesday participants:

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Try it on Tuesday is a weekly event where you pull out an untried polish out of your collection and try it on! I have the Take Wing Collection from Color Club from this year's spring release. I got these as a birthday gift back in July and swatched them awhile ago.

The Take Wing collection was a set of sparkly, glass flecked jellies with a slight duochrome effect. All photos are taken in direct and indirect sun.

From L to R: Color Club Daisy Does it, Sparkle and Soar, Wing Fling, Fly with Me, Metamorphosis, Sky High.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Halloween is an exciting time of year! I especially love all the glittery nail polish collections that are released. The upcoming Hocus Pocus collection from 365 Days of Color makes no exception! Her inspiration behind these polishes is based of the movie which I need to re-watch. I have three out of the five polishes for today's review.

From L to R: 365 Days of Color I Smell...Children, Come Little Children and Boouk!

Thursday, September 13, 2012

Wet n Wild's Blue Moon is from the Wild Shine line and is on the regular display in drugstores and department stores. It's $.99, therefore, quiet affordable. People often complain these chip easily or don't apply well. I don't have any of those issues with these polishes.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Okay, there's one thing (of many) that I will never get to do in life is go to outer space! As much as I would like to and as much as I fantasize about it, I will never get to go! My momma told me never say never well I will never get to leave earth (except for when I die). Unless, I become some billionaire that can afford space travel.

In the meantime, I can paint my interpretation of galaxies on the world's smallest canvas, my nails:

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